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Olympus Dramatic Tone Long Exposures

Looking for something new to try on a photo trip out to Swanage in Dorset, I had the diminutive EPL5 and some neutral density filters rattling around the camera bag so thought I’d try some long exposures using the ‘Dramatic Tone’ art filter.

Four seconds at f18 with the camera firmly braced against a sea wall produced this – not bad at all.

This special effects filter produces some spectacular results, pushing the contrast in the midtones and dragging detail from otherwise overcast skies. While shooting, the results look great but looking at hundreds of shots later when processing them brings home a sinking feeling – this effect should only be used sparingly as too much of it becomes tiringly repetitive!

Two seconds at f22 and more streaky seabirds….

Two stacked 58mm x3 ND filters on a hairy contraption of 37 ->49 then 49 ->58mm step up rings allowed their use on the tiny 14-42mm kit lens. When things briefly brightened up a circular polarizer was added to cut the light getting through to the sensor was added too! The resulting JPEGs were post-processed in DXO Filmpack using some of the ‘designer’ presets to give a toned result which adds an extra dimension to the monochrome images.

A river discharges into the sea here and there’s always a lot of seagulls milling around. The streaks in the sky are them flying past. Two seconds at f22.

The Oly’s IBIS (in body image stabilisation) and hand holding the camera on various posts, railings etc at exposures up to 8 seconds at f16-f22 worked reasonably well but there were around 50% failures due to camera shake (I was pushing things to extremes here!).

One second at f22 was all that was need here

There were a few dust spots on the sensor which have been cloned out – and the sensor given a quick clean. The processing required to create these if shooting in RAW+JPEG takes a few seconds at normal shutter speeds. With long exposure noise reduction processing added, it takes around five seconds to process and save each shot so don’t expect this to be a quick process.

Overall I’m reasonably pleased with this as a technique. It adds an extra twist to the well trodden ‘Dramatic Tone’ approach and might be useful for art print sales – though I can’t see it being much use for book covers. Mainly though, it’s simply good fun – give it a try if you have a chance.